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This is a page by a guest author, being hosted by the Kitopedia. It does not represent the work or necessarily the opinions of Christopher Sunami. These entries are NOT publicly licensed. All rights are retained by the original author. No entries may be reproduced without permission and attribution. Reprinted here by permission.
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Hero For Christ
A Statement of Community
John Sunami, South Side Settlement, Columbus Ohio, 8 April 1992
We are born into society. In the course of our lives, as we fulfill our needs and pursue our desires, we interact in discord or harmony with the needs and desires of others. We can not separate our lives from the interconnected fabric of life that struggles and exults around us.
When we come together in community, it is an opportunity to create structures of belief and action that will enrich and improve the quality of our lives, and to realize the potential of what we can accomplish.
It is our responsibility to create a community of culture and concern in which the richness of difference that is our human heritage is celebrated, and in which the inevitable conflict and struggle that comes from interaction is used to learn, grow and change.
We recognize that within a community freedom and responsibility are inseparable, and that we can only express the freedoms we value as individuals if we accept our responsibilities as members of society.
Among the responsibilities we recognize is working for social and economic justice. We reject self-centered greed, in word and deed, that divides society into unequal classes in which the weak are without rights and basic necessities while the strong indulge excesses.
We believe that the act of sharing experiences and emotions enriches and strengthens the community, and that the mutual respect, acceptance and trust that comes from sharing give us new opportunities to achieve.
We strive for excellence but reject the intolerance that comes from demanding perfection. We reject bigotry and inflexible viewpoints that blame those who are different and penalize those who protest. We reject the convenience of expediency when it conflicts with hard choices of need and growth.
The needs and potentials of individuals can be fulfilled in community, and government, as an expression of community, can promote the common good. It is our duty, to ourselves and to our children, that we do not pervert government into a repressive structure that divides and destroys society, but that we maintain it as the means through which we build a stronger community.
In building community we enrich ourselves and our neighbors, and give to our children a rich legacy of culture and possibility.